The Last Day On Earth
by HistoryIsImmortal
Summary: Set somewhere post season 3. The world is on the brink of an unavoidable catastrophe. Katherine decides to leave the past to the past and seek out Elijah. Will be a two-parter.
1. Preface

_Author's Note: In the light of the recent "end of the world panic" I thought I'd write something on the subject._

_You could consider "I Loved You First" as a prequel to this or this as a sequel to that or you could read both separately (or just this or neither), the choice is yours._

* * *

**The Last Day on Earth**

**Preface**

The end of the world didn't come on a beautiful, round date like the turn of the millennium or wasn't foreseen by some mysterious Mayan calendar, neither Bruce Willis nor Ben Affleck made an attempt to destroy the threat nor did Steven Tyler write a song to mark such an occasion. It was more like a bolt out of the blue – no one ever saw it coming. Not before it was too late.

Three days.

That's what all the astronomers, scientists and other specialists said. An asteroid almost the size of the moon was going to collide with the Earth in three days. And once it did the world would end, blown into smithereens, and everyone on the unfortunate ball of rock and dirt would share its fate.

Katherine found it incredibly cruel of the fate to play such a card on her. For heaven's sake, even Samara gave her victims seven days before she bothered with crawling out of that damn well while she would only have three.

In the light of the dreadful news the world transformed in the matter of hours, it seemed. Every city down to the last hillbilly-redneck jerkwater town turned into party-central. People just stopped caring. There was simply no time left for giving a fuck. They either rushed across the country to meet up with their friends and family for the last heartfelt good-byes or drank themselves into oblivion, hoping to find some sort of consolation in the arms of any stranger with that promise in their eyes.

Katherine had been in California when the news hit. Now with only two days still left she sat on a barstool in some random booze-sink in Santa Cruz, raising the umpteenth glass of bourbon to her lips.

It was ironic that she should perish along with the entirety of mankind. No other disaster, feud, conflict nor any kind of difficulty she'd faced through the centuries had managed to bring her down. She should have been proud of that and a part of her was, but truthfully, she wasn't ready to die. Even after five hundred years, she wasn't ready to die. Not yet.

She always imagined that one day the running would stop and she would be free of the constant looking over her shoulder, making sure whether anyone was still there, lurking in the shadows, planning to kill her.

She always sort of thought, _dreamed_, that one day she'd find peace and maybe even someone who loved her for exactly who she was, no pretending. She was tired of the pretending.

Now as she was faced with her imminent death, she had no time left. The minutes were ticking away, turning into hours and the last moments of her live ran through her fingers like water through cupped palms. There was nothing she could do, she'd never felt so helpless in her life. And she hated feeling helpless.

The most depressing part was that Katherine had _no one_ to run to, _no one_ to say her last farewell to, _no one_ that loved her, and for once in a long, long time, she felt the sting of sadness in her heart. She'd made a lengthy list of enemies during her half-a-millennia-long existence and not too many friends, and now she had to face the music.

Everyone and anyone who knew her either wanted her dead or smiled at her through gritted teeth, too afraid to confront her, loyal only out of obligation or prospect of gaining something out of her acquaintance. Enemies and false friends… that was all she had.

Katherine took another swig of her bourbon, watching the crowd around her. Old hits from the 80's and the 90's were playing loudly and people were dancing: drunk, happy and ignorant of their impending doom. The liquor was free since nobody was working at the bar. The back room had been plundered, all the wares brought out – in two days, no, it was pretty late, so make it _one_ day time it would all be turned to dust anyway.

People were literally falling off their seats out of drunkenness, dancing on every possible surface, smoking everywhere, making out with complete strangers. To Katherine it looked as if they'd all taken some sort of stupid pills.

She swore mentally that if she heard the lyrics "_It's just another lemon tree_" _one_ more time, she'd smash the stereo system.

A young blonde burst into tears a few barstools away from her, sobbing how she didn't want to die, how this was all so unfair. _The idiot_, Katherine thought bitterly. As if weeping like a three-year-old would "make it all better". She itched to snap her neck, but why bother when an asteroid would do the job for her?

Some middle-aged biker with a weather-beaten face patted her back compassionately, slurping beer and telling her meaningless words of comfort.

Katherine couldn't help but think about the Salvatore brothers and how they were probably sitting in the boarding house or at the Grill with Elena and all her little friends, telling how much they loved each other. Even the mental image was so cloy that it made her feel sick. Yet she wasn't petty enough to deny that a part of her wanted something like that too.

Maybe not love, she wasn't delusional. Just a small smile and a genuine good-bye, to clink her glass to someone's and say, "_That was one hell of a ride_."

She had loved the Salvatore's once, she honestly had, despite of what they thought. Just not enough. She'd loved many men in the past five hundred years, but never enough. No matter how perfect they were or how fervently they declared their affections to her, still they couldn't mend that gaping hole in her heart, hush that silent whisper in her head that told her all love was poison.

One harsh betrayal had been enough to teach her a lesson she never forgot.

Truly, if she had learned anything at all in her life, it was that in the end the only person she could trust or count on was herself. And that was a horribly lonely realization, but one that had kept her alive for so long. Now it had preceded its use. There was no reason to fight for a lost cause.

Death was certain. The place and company in which she would look in the eyes of her demise were still in her hands.

And oddly there was only one name that sprang into Katherine's mind, one person who might be worth visiting, who might not loathe her presence completely if she was lucky.

Elijah was a lone soul, much like herself, though at the same time so thoroughly different. He had already forsaken the mundane, irrelevant entity known as love when she was still just a naïve young girl searching for her place in this world. He was all for higher qualities, _for honor and glory!_ and every fiber of his being was full of dignity. She admired that.

But Katherine herself didn't possess such qualities. She wasn't dutiful or principled; she was very much ready to throw each and every belief out the window if it was necessary for getting out of a nasty situation with her head on her shoulders. She had no problem lying, manipulating or cheating to get her way. No rules – she'd meant it. Rules made a game boring and Katherine knew how to have fun.

Five hundred years ago she'd been quite different, though – more innocent, trusting and idealistic or in short: foolish. When on the run, she used to like to think that she may have melted that chunk of ice in Elijah's chest, he called a heart, just the tiniest bit, because then she could hope that it hurt him, even if very little, to hunt her mercilessly these past centuries.

_Elijah, Klaus and the pack of bloodhounds_, Katherine smirked. It sounded like the name of some alternative garage band. But she must have been good to have been able to avoid them for so long. She drank to that.

No, really she drank to ease the pain and chase away the emptiness that crept into her heart. She drank because she'd found out some things quite recently that made her wonder how everything might have played out differently.

Elijah had meant to save her life.

Gosh, she couldn't tell how many nights she'd spent lying awake, thinking about that, spinning different scenarios in her head of how things could have gone if she hadn't made so many mistakes. That fragment of information had changed so much for her, put the past in a different perspective, but hadn't given her enough courage to seek out Elijah again.

There were just so many convenient excuses to be used – it had all been a long time ago, they had both changed colossally since then… they'd spent the better part of five centuries hating each other… In the end the fact that he might have loved her changed nothing. It had been too long ago.

But it all seemed rather unimportant in the face of the doomsday.

Katherine thought back on the warmness of the moments they had shared in that fatal year of 1492 and decided that she chose to forget everything in between those memories and the present time. Quite simply put – it didn't matter, not anymore. What's the point of holding on to old grudges when the whole damn world is ending?

The thought made her laugh in a way she hadn't laughed for a very long time, like some nameless burden had been lifted from her heart. Sincerely and sweetly, with such pure joy to it that she made a few heads turn, looking at the lonesome girl who appeared so young, chuckling by herself as she downed more bourbon than a sailor.

If there was ever a time to raise that defiant little chin of hers and stop being a coward then it was right now. So she knew that she would find him and see him again, her "oldest friend", because even if he'd end her, all she'd miss was the asteroid.


	2. The Last Day On Earth

**The Last Day on Earth**

Locating Elijah wasn't hard for Katherine. She already knew where he was. Ever since she'd left Mystic Falls she'd kept tabs on all of the original siblings. That was her survival policy – always remain one step ahead. And she did have quite a few of those false friends to put to work for her.

So she knew that Kol was in Sydney with his mates, wasted but still on his feet, probably sucking dry some pretty girl at this exact moment.

Klaus was in Paris at some very exclusive gathering of some of his oldest acquaintances. She wouldn't use the term 'friends' since Klaus didn't have any, not really.

Rebekah, who had at last abandoned her half-mad brother, was in LA, allegedly getting married to "the love of her life". Then again, it was the end of the world, so Katherine wouldn't argue… She deserved her delusions for putting up with Klaus for so long.

And Elijah was in Charleston. He had been chasing some ancient artifact or whatever, but she guessed it didn't matter much now. She also knew that he owned a place near the harbor so that's where he'd be.

It was dawning outside when Katherine exited the bar. It took her nearly all morning to find a guy who claimed he had been an airplane pilot before the doomsday bells started ringing. She compelled him and dragged him down to some private airfield, because regular air traffic had obviously ceased. Finding a usable airplane was child's play since the whole place was totally deserted, the airway free to anyone who wanted to take off.

Once they landed in Charleston, she made a snack out of her travel companion.

"Did you a favor, buddy," she remarked nonchalantly as she discarded his body in the middle of the airport's tarmac. One good thing about the coming apocalypse – no need to hide corpses.

She passed through the empty terminal as if she owned the place, grabbing a pair of car keys from the rental by the main doors. This was just way too easy. Not to mention convenient.

Not fifteen minutes later, Katherine was on the open road, speeding towards the town.

She drove through the mostly abandoned streets of Charleston, windows rolled down and music turned up. She sang along with the mellow male voice that was in the middle of some 60's pop song while smoking a cigarette, one hand hanging out of the window. To any spectator it would have appeared as if she didn't have a care in the world, as if she was just coasting through the streets on a beautiful summer day, which it was, heading to the beach.

There were crashed cars on the side of the road. Probably the work of some local punks who thought the best way to kill time before the arrival of the asteroid was to race very fast cars through the wide streets of Charleston.

Clusters of young people had gathered in different places – in front of bars and pubs, in parks, on street corners and parking lots, watching Katherine with some interest as she passed by them. It was all a strange mixture of tragedy and comedy with people laughing in their state of mindless drunkenness and then spontaneously breaking down into a hysterical fit of crying and screaming.

They smashed bottles on the pavement and threw their cell phones at windows, howling with laughter as the glass scattered noisily over the asphalt.

How stupid people could be… Every time Katherine thought the mankind had reached its peak of idiocy they came up with something new to surprise her with.

It was like a silly little game they played, she thought darkly. A game that was about to end.

* * *

It didn't take long to find the right address. It belonged to a tall white building, beaming in the bright afternoon sun like a beacon of light. By the look of it, the structure must have dated back to as far as the Colonial period.

Katherine marched upstairs, not one locked door on the way to stop her. She felt a bit jittery, even nervous, wondering if perhaps the smarter thing to do would be to turn around, but then again it was far too close to the end to get cold feet.

The apartment on the top floor appeared empty when she stuck her head through the door. Music was sounding from another room. Mozart's Requiem, how fitting. The double doors that lead to a vast balcony were open, the thin curtains floating in a soft breeze.

She walked right through them into the daylight again. It felt hotter than before in contrast to the cool apartment. The view of the harbor and the glimmering sea was breathtaking, but she tore her eyes from the scenery and aimed them at the man sitting at the small table near the thick stone edge of the oval-shaped balcony.

"I see you're in an appropriate mood already," Katherine noted casually, not managing to coax even a look out of him. "So no family reunion, no tearful good-byes?"

"We decided to meet up at the gates of hell," Elijah said curtly without raising his gaze from the book he was reading. There was a note of dark humor in his voice where once had been real emotion. He really had changed quite a bit in the past five hundred years, Katherine thought, feeling oddly hollow.

"Lovely," she remarked as she tossed her jacket on the back of a chair across the table from him, letting her fingers linger on the leathery fabric just a moment longer as she examined his face with thinly veiled curiosity.

It was the strangest sensation, seeing him sitting there so calmly, ignoring her, when once he had turned the world inside out trying to find her. He and Klaus had always remained in the back of her mind along with the curse that had destroyed her life and the fate she had tried to escape. But in the back of her mind things had blurred and changed over the time and created new and terrifying faces to her pursuers when in reality they were just men, not monsters. And this was the first time since the 15th century she actually had a moment to simply look at Elijah without her brain cooking up escape plans and elaborate lies in a feverish speed.

He seemed so much less scary now, in broad daylight, absorbed in his reading. More like he used to when they spent their days together in the castle he and his brother had owned back in England a long, long time ago. She had believed in the goodness of people then, not even condemning Klaus who always threw empty promises at her, disappearing for days on end without as much as a farewell. He was all charm and smiles, a vain prince to steal a lady's heart, and Elijah was more of a quiet shadow, never drawing much attention to himself. But during those lazy afternoons when Klaus had gone missing again, she had discovered that Elijah had quite a different sort of charm. He wasn't just polite, but also attentive while Klaus would dismiss her words but with a wave of his hand. Wise, yet not in a fashion that would've made her feel stupid or lesser in any way. He could be funny if he wanted to, but never vulgar. Katherine wondered if he still possessed all these attributes.

Elijah's eyes flickered up to her face in a somewhat annoyed manner. "What do you want, Katerina?"

It was a good question, Katherine thought with some surprise. What did she want, indeed? His apology or his forgiveness… or both? Would her tongue fall off if she actually admitted she was sorry for some of her past actions? Would it make any difference if she did say it aloud for once?

"Just visiting an old friend," she said with a sly smile. Always keeping her defenses up, never dropping the act… she didn't remember how.

"And where might that friend be?" Elijah said, his eyes shining with amusement, lips pursed and curved up so ever slightly. He was mocking her.

Katherine ignored his jibe. "Aren't you the least bit happy to see me?"

"About as happy as I'll be when the asteroid reappears," he said airily, opening his book again. He didn't even care enough to make her leave and she was quite shocked at how much it hurt. Then again Rome wasn't… _rebuilt_ in a day, especially after being sacked so brutally.

Anyway, she did what she always did in that kind of an unpleasant situation. She snorted haughtily, straightened her back and lifted her chin a bit higher. It made her feel better for some reason.

Maybe she should have left, but she didn't have anywhere to go really. Instead, she sat down and extended her hand forward, aiming for the glass of whiskey on his end of the little table.

He intercepted her, catching her wrist easily in his firm grip. "Why are you really here?" he demanded with such cold calmness that it made her stomach turn.

"Because…" Katherine started, hesitating. Why was telling the truth so much harder than lying? Even more so under his scrutinizing gaze. "Because I don't want to be alone," she finished to her own surprise.

"You don't want to _die_ alone. There's a difference, you see," Elijah said, but not unkindly. More like he'd almost understood.

"I suppose…" she agreed. "Do you?"

"I think it hardly matters whether there's someone next to you or not. It is in the end the _one_ door you can only enter alone."

Katherine wondered if he had an answer for everything.

"So you're all packed up and ready to go?"

"It's not the kind of journey on which one should bother with luggage," he quipped. As literal as ever.

"Figure of speech," she said dismissively, "and you know, you don't have to be so tedious about such things."

"Very well," he nodded, "and as for your question – yes, I believe I'm ready to go when the time comes."

_Aren't you scared?_ she wanted to ask but couldn't bring herself to do it. It would have been as good as admitting that she was and Katherine wasn't about to give him the satisfaction. Oddly Elijah was the one person on earth who could say stuff like that and sound believable in the process. Maybe he really wasn't afraid at all.

So all she managed was a mildly shaky, "How?"

"A man once asked: why weep for you must die?" Elijah explained as he pulled out another glass filling it with whiskey before he handed it to Katherine. "For if life was ever kind to you and not all joys ran through you like a sieve without leaving behind a mark, then why can't you simply rise from the life's dining table as a grateful guest and lay to rest peacefully? I've had a thousand years, so why grieve what should have ended centuries ago?"

"Quite a philosophy you have," Katherine noted, sipping her drink thoughtfully. "But even if you are as resigned to death as you say, doesn't mean you can't be the tiniest bit frightened…"

Elijah's eyes swept over the docks below them and the light blue ocean that stretched out to the horizon, sparkling in the slowly fading sunlight so very beautifully. "Are you?" he queried without looking away.

"Depends if there is a God after all or not," she said with a mischievous smirk, tracing one finger along the rim of her glass, "because if there is, we're all in serious trouble."

"True, but then again I do have difficulty imagining you with white wings and a halo around your head," Elijah said with a derisive smile, tilting his head in a manner that suggested he was actually trying to picture her like that. He swung the tumbler in his hand, watching as the golden liquid swirled around in it. "On the other hand a pair of horns and a pitchfork would fit you splendidly."

"Oh, don't flatter me," Katherine scoffed. "At this point that would be a welcome development. To be the queen of the damned… 'Cause I bet there's probably a petition or two circling around down there on what sort of ghastly punishment to use on me first."

She was genuinely surprised when Elijah uttered a light laugh at that. There was weirdly some unexplainable elegance even to his laughter.

"So you're not at all sad to go?" Katherine wondered. She wouldn't buy it for a second that somebody could be _so_ indifferent to life.

"Of course I am. But I won't deny that the world has changed a little too drastically for my taste."

"Oh, yes, I see," Katherine smiled teasingly, "it's surely too liberal for you these days. You must have felt right at home in the 19th century with all the social rules, surrounded by the mandatory graces and feigned virtues."

"I did enjoy the unbending standards of the time, but what made it truly interesting was all that lay beneath the pretty surface. I'm sure that was your preferred hunting ground. I know how much you enjoy a fall from grace."

"You know me so well," she said with a splash of sarcasm in her voice. He smiled at her politely, but it felt like some wordless jape.

They remained silent for a while before he spoke again.

"In truth, I'm quite curious what it will be like. _Dying,_" Elijah said, looking at her conversationally. And once again Katherine felt so strange just sitting there and talking about everything and nothing to him so similarly to the way they used to five hundred years ago. "Perhaps it's the beginning of a new adventure?"

"That's a comforting thought," Katherine murmured, almost to herself. "I still can't say I like feeling this helpless. There's been a hundred times I thought 'this is it, no way of getting out of this one' and yet somehow I did. You should know," she winked at him playfully, "but now there's simply nothing I can do to survive."

"Yes, sadly one can't seduce an asteroid; otherwise I'd be rather unworried about our safety."

Now it was Katherine's turn to laugh – sincerely for once.

"So," she said after a short pause during which they both just enjoyed the lazy afternoon sun that was persistently sinking lower, "what were you planning to do with your last day on Earth?"

He chuckled quietly. "You make it sound so tragic."

"Isn't it, then?"

"It's all in the matter of how we perceive time, I guess…" Elijah mused, finishing his whiskey in one long sip. "From the standpoint of mankind, sure, it's the ultimate tragedy, but from the point of view of the entire universe it's just a blink of an eye, something too brief to even matter."

"What have you been reading?" Katherine smirked, observing his stoic face with interest.

"I just think everything depends on the viewpoint. You don't see the time the same way a normal human being would, do you?"

"Hmm… you certainly have a point there," she agreed.

"As for any plans, I was hoping to reread one of my favorites," Elijah said, waving in his hand the book he'd been reading before. "But I don't suppose that's going to work now."

"Definitely not!" Katherine announced. "I bet you've spent half your life going through dusty books, so why waste your last moments in this world with your nose in one?"

He gave her a condemning look stating that reading could never be a waste of time, but said nothing on the subject.

"So do enlighten me, what do you suppose we should do?" he inquired instead. "And, _please_, nothing…"

Katherine wasn't going to let him finish. She already had an idea. "You said you miss the old world, so I say we'll have an old-fashioned kind of evening," she proposed and decided to take the relief and surprised delight on his face as a compliment.

That much was settled then.

They might have started with supper, but neither of them had prepared one in their life, so that was a no go.

Instead Elijah opened a bottle of red wine and ranted for nearly fifteen minutes why it was ought to be so good. Katherine went through the cupboards and "shockingly" found a box of tea biscuits which made her remind Elijah that he wasn't really English.

They drank coffee and wine and Katherine munched on the cookies, although she wasn't very hungry, all the while talking about the time they'd spent together in England. Even when at first she thought that avoiding all the bad memories would be as if tiptoeing through a minefield, it turned out to be a lot easier than expected, even quite effortless. They managed to uncover an impressing amount of amusing incidents and other moments worth recalling.

It seemed as if the stout stone walls of the castle, the beautiful gardens with their many flowers and neatly trimmed hedges, the ancient woods she used to ride through and the golden fields that covered the roadsides in vast patches were once again resurrected before her eyes. For a moment the nostalgia felt nearly overwhelming and she wondered whether Elijah felt it too, not that his carefully controlled expression would have ever given anything away.

But the subject of their recent discoveries about some of the more dreadful events that had occurred in 1492 was stubbornly left out of their conversations, neither of them either daring or crazy enough to bring it up. Katherine surmised that it wasn't important anyway since the doom was arriving in a matter of hours and they were here, together, chatting like old friends, which was what she'd really wanted. So why ruin it by discussing matters that couldn't possibly be resolved in such a short time?

Because this was it. They'd never have the time to be anything more than friends, heavens, they were barely friends as it was. It was so awfully frustrating. Katherine hadn't concerned herself with the concept of time so obsessively in her entire life, even when she was still a human, and now she could almost feel the ticking inside her skull.

* * *

It had grown dark outside when they gathered around the black piano in the living-room, although Elijah kept insisting that it was left behind by the previous owners and not something he knew how to use properly.

Eventually Katherine managed to convince him to play a few songs, claiming in turn that if they were, indeed, having an authentic evening out of the good old times, this was so in the programme.

He wasn't a masterful player but he was good and Katherine felt as if she'd moved some four centuries forward from 1492 on this sentimental journey she seemed to be taking tonight. Of course she took full advantage of the situation. It was her final evening and she was going to savour every last second of it.

So she hopped on the glossy lid and sang each song he played from beginning to the end. She was quite a capable singer, so they both had their skills, leftovers from a different time. It was rather funny – that set of "accomplishments" they'd been given – how to entertain a guest, but not how to cook a meal. And, naturally, the ability to compel people and their preference of "food" had ensured that they never had to obtain such knowledge.

Katherine just sang, every word of the lyrics of the old and familiar songs as if carved into her mind. And Elijah glanced at her whenever he wasn't too busy with the piano keys with a relaxed, handsome smile on his face.

So for a moment Katherine could close her eyes and almost forget about the asteroid that was speeding towards them so mercilessly. She could imagine that she was in the grand drawing room of one of the many beautiful mansions she'd been to in her life. The dinner was over and the party had been too small to arrange music and dancing, so somebody would play the piano and they'd all beg her to sing, insisting she had an angelic voice. And she'd laugh bashfully and agree, thinking how naïve and shallow they all were to not detect her true colors.

* * *

After the 'musical hour' they retreated back to the balcony to play old card games such as _manille_ and _écarte_ and_ tresette_, laughing and sharing humorous stories of their lives in the past five hundred years _and_, obviously, watching the red-hot ball of rock that had once again become visible as the planet had turned.

The scientists had predicted that it would land in the Atlantic ocean, not too far from Virginia Beach so they did not only have a front row ticket to the "show" but they were probably also going to die instantly. Katherine considered that lucky. She'd never been in favor of dragging out such unpleasant things.

The asteroid looked strangely beautiful floating on the black canvas of the sky like some mysterious star, slowly growing bigger and bigger. The way it lit up the night was very much ominous, though, with its silent promise of 'soon'.

* * *

The clock on the wall showed it was a few minutes past midnight as they found themselves lying on the spacious bed, stretched out on the white covers, Elijah in his expensive suit and Katherine in her skin-tight jeans and a top. She had still no idea how she'd convinced him to face their mutual demise from there. All she knew was that she wanted somebody at her side , otherwise it would have been just too unbearable.

The room was dark and quiet and full of anticipation as they observed the ball of fire through the large bay window.

When an hour ago it had been a distressing presence looming above them then now it had absorbed them completely. It felt close to impossible to turn their eyes from it.

Katherine wrapped one arm around Elijah's waist, resting her head on his chest as she stared at the sky. He made no protest but stirred so ever slightly.

"I'm scared," she admitted in an almost inaudible whisper, swallowing the last of her pride.

She could hear Elijah breathe soundly but he made no attempt to speak. He only set one hand on her head, stroking her hair absent-mindedly and so lightly she could barely feel it. Somehow she found a little comfort in it.

"I guess it's time to say good-bye," she added after a while.

"Yes," he replied and there was true sadness to his voice.

"Is it stupid to hope that it's not yet the end?"

"It's never stupid to _hope_, but I'm afraid it is, nevertheless."

"Do you think you could have ever loved me again?"

She could feel him growing very still at her question. "I think there's a little part of me that never stopped loving you," he said so very quietly, "the same way a tiny part of me will never forgive you for some of the things you've done. I suppose you feel something of the same."

It was just so like him to tell the unadulterated truth instead of succumbing to beautiful lies even in a moment when it would, perhaps, be justified. She was glad he didn't, though, and as Katherine thought about his words, she found astonishingly that he was right.

She gave him a small nod she knew he would register.

"But I'm not foolish enough to make any predictions," he continued. "The future is far too unpredictable to foretell anything. Well, except that the world is ending," he chuckled at that, but without any glee, "that is one certain fact, so whatever comes next, we must leave it for the afterlife."

Katherine tore her gaze from the asteroid that had become so incredibly close now that she knew there was very little time left. She propped herself up on one elbow, whirling her head around to see him.

Elijah looked at him curiously, his eyes appearing nearly black in the dim room. She brushed the back of her hand against his cheek just because she could and because she'd never had the chance to do so before, looking at him the way you look at someone when you're trying to see into their heads.

He appeared as calm as he usually did. Like the North Star, she decided, always pointing at the same direction, steady and reliable.

Katherine felt her lips curve upwards. "But you know I like to cheat," she said softly, that tiny note of teasing in her voice.

As she pressed her lips to his, she felt a sudden wave of calmness washing over her, too. She was still terrified of death, still mourning all the things she'd never have the chance to do, regretting a thousand mistakes she'd made in her long life, but somehow for an instant they were all cast to the background.

"Good-bye, Elijah," she breathed.

"Good-bye," he murmured back.

She felt a brief flash of heat and a part of her still hoped that a moment later she'd wake up from this nightmare where the world came to an end. But then she knew she wouldn't, because she'd never had such a pleasant nightmare.

* * *

_With this story particularly, I've noticed that I tend to use a quite complicated sentence structures at times, but I hope there's no difficulty understanding what I'm saying (?). Obviously my aim is to improve my writing skills and commas, for instance, are my weakness (English is not my native language and commas are one hard nut to crack)._

_Also as I wrote the part where Elijah describes his former plans for the evening, I wanted to include the name of "one of his favorites", but I couldn't decide what kind of literature he would enjoy. Purely out of curiosity, I was wondering if anybody has an opinion on the matter…?_

_And Steffi, sorry, but this one kind of had to end with the whole Earth blowing up, but I might always write something else about them. Just waiting for the next idea to pop into my head._


End file.
